iPhone six and Apple Pay Could Be the Best Things Ever to Happen to Bitcoin

By Hal M. Bundrick Sep 22, two thousand fourteen Five:52 PM EDT

Fresh YORK (InsideBitcoins) — Sales of iPhone six and iPhone six Plus smartphones topped ten million units in their debut this past weekend – a fresh record. And next month Apple Pay, the mobile payment system, will be suggested as a free upgrade to the iPhone’s operating system.

It may be ideal timing. The Home Depot hack is once again touching consumers raw with security concerns. Dwarfing the Target breach from last year’s holiday season, it is likely the largest consumer credit hack in history. Now, every time a customer swipes a credit card – or worse yet, a debit card – they will have a twinge of doubt regarding a transaction’s security. And the holiday shopping season is looming.

Retailers are scrambling to implement harm control. Security expenses are mounting and being passed on to U.S. customers in an effort to recoup lost retail profits. Higher prices will result in order to cover the costs of enhanced security measures and provide cash-cushion “insurance” for future losses.

Is bitcoin a solution waiting in the wings? Consumers don’t yet think so. According to a latest survey, the #1 concern among the U.S. population regarding the digital currency is – you guessed it: security.

Perhaps Apple’s iPhone six will save Bitcoin

David Ripley, the Chicago-based founder and CEO of Glidera, a bitcoin wallet presently in prelaunch invitation mode, is enthusiastic about Bitcoin’s future. And he thinks Apple may well play a forearm in the cryptocurrency’s success.

Any fresh payment technology faces a “chicken and the egg” challenge, he says. That’s the reluctance of merchants to accept a payment mechanism until consumers are already on board — and consumers could care less about a payment technology if they can’t use it anywhere. It’s the same challenge Bitcoin has faced in its brief history – and Apple will face with its payment innovation.

Apple is eight hundred million consumers ahead

“A good example is Google Wallet, which effectively launched more or less exactly what Apple Pay is looking to do,” Ripley told Inwards Bitcoins. “But one of the massive differences inbetween the two is that Apple has an enormous number of consumers already on board from Day One.”

Consumers with iTunes accounts are effectively already signed up and ready to go. That’s eight hundred million accounts — and eight hundred million credit card users. Apple has been able to leverage this consumer relationship with most of America’s largest banks and retail icons such as McDonald’s, Subway and Walgreens.

“If we’re talking about a mobile payment mechanism that is something that is going to drive people’s habits from using a credit card to using a mobile device, the frequency at which a particular individual uses that fresh payment mechanism is truly meaningful,” Ripley adds. “If [consumers are] given an chance to use it once a month, they might attempt it once — and then they’re done after that. But if they have an chance to use it several times a week, or even several times a day — that’s hugely different.”

What is Apple Pay’s benefit proposition?

“At the end of the day, what is Apple Pay?” Ripley asks. “It’s basically: Instead of pulling a credit card out of your wallet, you’re using your phone. What is the benefit statement for this? There’s the same cost. There’s a slightly better security model, not drastically different, because everything rails on the same legacy payment system — you have all of the same challenges with cost, security and slowness.”

Many of these challenges are multiplied on the merchant side. Businesses are faced with “enormous” credit card fees, processing delays and security challenges that dwarf all others: think Target, Home Depot and dozens of other mass breaches that have exploded in latest years.

“All of these challenges are not going to get any better, and they might get slightly worse in some cases with Apple Pay,” Ripley claims. The only benefit proposition Apple is suggesting is “you don’t have to carry around a credit card — a fraction of an ounce lump of plastic.” You just wave your iPhone in front of a point-of-sale terminal.

Merchants are realizing the benefits of Bitcoin and are driving acceptance by promoting payments using the digital currency — and in many cases suggesting discounts and other incentives to prize consumer adoption.

“What Apple Pay is going to do, is stir a lot of merchants to retro-fitting a lot of their systems such that their systems are built to accept mobile payments. Which is a hefty benefit for bitcoin.”

Ripley says it’s fairly possible merchants will upgrade their systems in order to accept Apple Pay and then recognize that by simply installing another app they can realize the cost benefit of also accepting bitcoin payments.

Meantime, Apple will guide consumers to becoming acquainted to paying with a phone, rather than a credit card.

“[Bitcoin] can come in with its better security model, and lower costs, and quicker — all of those things that are truly significant benefits — and win the day.”